Protocol

Hemacytometers may be obtained from most major laboratory suppliers (e.g., Baxter Scientific). The procedure below provides some general directions on how to use the hemacytometer.

Clean the chamber and cover slip with alcohol. Dry and fix the coverslip in position.

Harvest the cells. Add 10 μL of the cells to the hemacytometer. Do not overfill.

Place the chamber in the inverted microscope under a 10X objective. Use phase contrast to distinguish the cells.

Count the cells in the large, central gridded square (1 mm2). The gridded square is circled in the graphic below. Multiply by 104 to estimate the number of cells per mL. Prepare duplicate samples and average the count.